Decolonizing citizenship through indigenous ontologies: the Bissu community’s alternative framework for political belonging in Indonesia

Contemporary Contemporary citizenship studies face a persistent challenge: despite decades of multicultural reform, Western frameworks continue to marginalize Indigenous political systems. This article advances the concept of ontological citizenship political belonging grounded in relational cosmologies rather than liberal individualism through an ethnographic study of Bissu communities in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Drawing on 15 months of fieldwork (2022–2024), including interviews, ritual participation, and iterative thematic analysis, we examine how Sulapa Eppa cosmology and the 3S relational ethics (sipakatau, sipakainge, sipakalebbi) articulate a form of cosmological democracy structured by temporal integration, multi-species relationality, and processual sovereignty. Rather than treating Indigenous knowledge as cultural supplement, the article positions Bissu thought as political theory. It introduces the concept of citizenship epistemicide to describe patterned mechanisms of erasure religious delegitimation, bureaucratic exclusion, and cultural commodification that undermine Indigenous political authority. At the same time, it documents strategies of ontological resistance through ritual adaptation, economic diversification, and inter-regional networking. By theorizing cosmological translation as a practical mode of plural coexistence, the article contributes to debates on pluriversal democracy and challenges the presumed universality of liberal citizenship.